


Star Wars One Shots: A Good Story For Another Time

by couronnedesfleurs



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Darth Vader's A+ parenting, Drama, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Skywalker Family Drama (Star Wars), Slice of Life, Suitless Darth Vader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:06:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29365212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/couronnedesfleurs/pseuds/couronnedesfleurs
Summary: One-shot/drabbles that I might make into proper fics in the future but for now just want to stop living in my head rent free.Chapter 1- In hiding on Tatooine, Obi-Wan has his hands full keeping watch over young trouble-magnet Luke Skywalker.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Luke Skywalker
Comments: 7
Kudos: 42





	Star Wars One Shots: A Good Story For Another Time

**Author's Note:**

> Slight AU in which Obi-Wan keeps hold of the japor snippet after the events of Mustafar. 
> 
> Purely self-indulgent rubbish tbh.

‘Hello there.’

The smooth, sophisticated voice cut cleanly through Luke’s panic. He’d let go of her hand for a second, a few minutes at most, to wander over to a display of sparkling jewellery and gemstones, only to be swatted away by the owner and told to scram. It was reaching midday. The suns were beating down relentlessly against his raw skin, and the smell of cloying spices from the tightly-packed stalls stifled the dusty air. The market was bustling, a cacophony of haggling customers and avaricious vendors, and Aunt Beru was nowhere to be seen. 

Only the man’s silhouette could be made out as he peered up at him, tall and dark, outlined by the dazzling twin suns.

‘Uncle Owen doesn’t like me talking to strangers,’ Luke said dubiously. He almost stuck his thumb in his mouth, but remembered he was a big boy now, and big boys didn’t do that.

‘He’s right to tell you so,’ the man agreed amiably, ‘but I am no stranger.’

He pulled back his hood, revealing an auburn-haired man in his forties. His handsome face was prematurely lined where deep sorrow had etched its mark. But as he smiled at Luke, his bright turquoise eyes crinkling, Luke felt a sudden surge of familiarity.

‘Mr Ben?’

Luke tilted his head, still unsure.

‘Uncle Owen was talking ’bout you. He doesn’t like you very much.’

Obi-Wan smiled. A child’s perspective, although blunt, could always be relied upon for honesty.

‘That is true. But it is not his fault; we are taught to fear what we do not understand.’

He crouched down to make himself seem less imposing. The child was smaller than even Anakin had been- perhaps he’d inherited his mother’s height- but he didn’t think Luke would appreciate this observation.

‘You’ve grown a lot since I last saw you.’

‘Mhmm. I’m a big boy now- that’s what Aunt Beru says.’

Luke held up six fingers proudly.

‘And where is your Aunt?’

‘We-ell,’ the boy shifted from foot to foot, ‘I don’t know. I didn’t mean to wander off, honest! I just wanted to see the pretty stones, but then she was gone!’

‘I see. We’d better get you back to her, I’m sure she’s very worried-’

Obi-Wan was cut off by a loud cry from a few metres away.

‘You thieving sleemo, you-!’

‘ _E chu ta!’_

With a roar of fury the Rodian whipped out his blaster and shot the arguing stall owner straight through the heart. His smoking body toppled backwards into the display and brought it crashing to the ground, causing a domino effect that had the other booths collapsing and roused the onlookers into a stampede.

‘Up you get, little one.’

Obi-Wan gestured urgently and Luke didn’t need to be told twice, clambering onto his shoulders and clinging on for dear life. He was so small he risked being trampled, or at the very least being swept away with the crowd.

Using only the subtlest form of mind tricks, Obi-Wan cleared a path for them through the sea of mass hysteria. He’d found the child just in time, and silently thanked the Force for guiding him towards the boy. Not that he’d needed it. Luke Skywalker was a beacon in the Force, a pure unspoiled source of blinding light- exactly like another small sandy-haired child who’d once run amok among these dunes.

This gift, which should have been a blessing, had doomed the boy’s life from the moment it began. Holding Luke as a minutes-old new born, reeling with grief from losing both Anakin and Padmé, Obi-Wan’s heart had sunk at the strength of his Force signature. The child, although technically orphaned, would never be safe from the covetous grasp of the Emperor- or, indeed, his father. 

This had never been more apparent, as he heard the tell-tale clanging of stormtrooper armour descending on the scene. The Empire had arrived to supposedly restore order, but would likely only fan the flames.

Obi-Wan ducked into a narrow side alley into a network of dimly lit back lanes, inwardly cursing. If Luke had been found wandering around unaccompanied…

It didn’t bear thinking about.

Checking around and making sure they were alone and well concealed, Obi-Wan lowered to the ground, allowing the child to slide off safely, and gently gripped his shoulders.

‘Are you okay, Luke?’

The boy shrugged, and Obi-Wan could sense no particular anguish in his Force signature. It said a lot about how desensitized Luke was from living on Tatooine that he had just witnessed a cold-blooded murder first hand and remained nonchalant.

A pang of sadness shot through Obi-Wan. If the galaxy had been put to rights, Luke would never have had to grow up on this Force-forsaken planet. He would have had his mother and his father to raise him, perhaps in a stylish Coruscantian apartment or in the Nabooian Lake Country. He would know his sister, and he most certainly wouldn’t have been scampering about Mos Eisley on market day, notorious for drawing the very worst sorts of people on top of its usual hive of scum and villainy.

‘What were you doing in the city, young one?’

Privately he thought that Beru should’ve known better than to bring a dreamy, naïve child into such a dangerous situation, but reflected that he was hardly an expert on successfully raising Skywalkers and keeping them from harm.

‘Oh, Aunt Beru needed supplies, and I wanted to get off the farm,’ Luke wrinkled his nose. ‘I don’t want to be a farmer. It’s boring, and dusty, and nothing ever changes. Not like here. Here, it’s exciting, and there’s always something happening.’

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow.

‘I cannot argue with you there. But surely you don’t want to become a businessman, or a bounty hunter?’

‘No way! I want to be a pilot like my father-’

Luke’s face lit up in excitement as he started to ramble about flying and mechanics and droids, and Obi-Wan had to suppress a shiver. The likeness was uncanny, both in appearance and personality.

‘-but Uncle Owen won’t like that. I don’t think he likes much, actually. Never anything that _I_ like, anyway.’

‘Like spaceships and gemstones?’

‘Yep. _Especially_ the gemstones. They’re pretty and shiny, but he says moisture farmers don’t need those kinds of things.’

The boy’s face fell slightly, and another resounding wave of grief and guilt consumed Obi-Wan. Given his mother’s proclivities for opulent clothes and jewellery, Luke would have wanted for nothing if she’d survived. He knew she’d have much to say on the subject, seeing her only son dressed in off-white farmer’s rags with a line of engine oil streaked across one cheek.

‘Well, he’s not wrong. But needs and wants are not always mutually exclusive.’

He knew Yoda, wherever he was, would criticise him, wrinkled green face puckered in disapproval. Attachments were not the Jedi way, and that included material belongings. They could lead to disaster, pain, and torment- as the boy’s father had so singularly proved.

But the order was no more, and Obi-Wan thought only of the child as he rummaged in his robes, pulling out the trinket that had been burning a hole there for six years.

Luke’s eyes, already large and expressive in his young face, grew to the size of small planets as he watched the dangling japor snippet, utterly transfixed.

‘ _Wow!!_ Are you rich, Mr Ben?’

Obi-Wan smiled wryly.

‘Most definitely not.’

‘But you _must_ be to have one of _these_!’

He took it reverently, stroking his small fingers over the carved charm as his mother’s had once done.

‘The truth is, it doesn’t belong to me.’

‘You _stole_ it? But Uncle Owen says it’s wrong to steal!’ Luke said, outraged.

‘So it is; from a certain point of view. The truth is, I was looking after it for someone. Someone very special.’

‘A friend?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Then why don’t you give it back to them?’

‘I already have.’

Luke’s eyes, if possible, grew even bigger.

‘M-me? You mean it’s _mine?’_

‘It was your father’s, then your mother’s. Naturally, it now belongs to you.’

Obi-Wan hadn’t planned to hand over the necklace so early. In fact, he’d vowed to keep it safe during the boy’s youth, and gift it to him when he was old enough to understand the weight of its history.

But seeing Luke’s face light up wistfully as he described the gemstones at the market had touched a nerve. Obi-Wan didn’t have much to offer, older and jaded and secluded as he was; a shadow of his former self. This was the one thing he could do for Luke, as small and insignificant as it seemed.

He helped the boy with the clasp around his neck, the catch too fiddly for his growing hands.

‘You knew my mother?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Am I like her?’

‘Very much.’

‘Will you tell me about her?’

This had been Obi-Wan’s fear, the awful sinking feeling that came with dredging up the past, the dread that had nearly led to him selfishly keeping the stone hidden in his robes.

‘When you’re older, Luke. Your uncle wouldn’t approve of me filling your head with stories.’

_Stories._

As if that’s all they’d ever been.

Padmé Amidala reduced to a name in a political history book, a symbol of justice, a martyr for the rebellion.

And Anakin Skywalker? He had been erased completely.

Luke opened his mouth, no doubt to argue- he was his father’s son after all- but was interrupted by a shout filled with equal amounts of relief and alarm.

‘ _Luke!_ Luke, where have you been?!’

Obi-Wan thanked the stars, or the Force, or whichever deity had graced six-year olds with an attention span not much bigger than an Ewok, as Luke dashed over to hug her.

‘Oh Luke, I was so worried! When I saw the stormtroopers…’

She trailed off, cradling him to her chest, meeting Obi-Wan’s eyes over the top of Luke’s head. They shared a meaningful look.

‘I’m fine Aunt Beru! I met Mr Ben, and look what he gave me!’

Luke waved the snippet in his aunt’s face, which had suddenly turned ashen.

‘That’s… that’s very kind of him.’

She took Luke’s hand, firmly gripping it within her own as if scared he would disappear again.

‘We’d better get home. Your uncle will be wondering where we’ve got to.’

She turned to Obi-Wan one last time. He had expected to see confusion, disagreement, even anger for giving the boy his mother’s necklace when he was still so young. It was highly unlikely they’d ever discussed Luke’s parents in front of him. It would only open up all sorts of questions, especially for a naturally curious child like Luke.

But instead, he only saw sadness, with a hint of fear. She was deathly afraid, that much was clear, but not of him, or even for him- she was terrified for her nephew and for what the future held.

‘Thank you, Ben.’

That made two of them.

He watched them leave- Luke chirping away to his aunt, blissfully unaware of the underlying tension, Beru hurrying him away as quickly as she could.

No amount of hiding, sheltering or evasion would do any good. The boy may have been a child of the sand like his father, but already it was sharpening his rough edges, filing him down and cutting him to size.

He was a diamond in the rough, shaping up to be a supernova, and Obi-Wan knew there were many more storms heading their way.

**Author's Note:**

> This is part one of a longer arc; more Obi-Wan and Luke to come. 
> 
> Let me know what you thought, and thank you for reading! 💕
> 
> Come scream about SW with me on [Tumblr](https://couronnedesfleurs.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/fleurscouronne).


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